Exploration, Belonging, & Advocacy
At YIA, we thrive in outdoor spaces by going on hikes, overnight camping trips, canoeing and kayaking, winter cabin retreats, skating and biking through the park, or going to the coast for a beach day. YIA believes that exposure to nature facilitates growth and vulnerability that helps develop both leadership and life skills. Through these opportunities youth find joy and belonging, they’re given space to play and to heal, and they build together while practicing leadership and social emotional skills.
On our trips, youth often wonder: “Why doesn’t anyone look like me out here?” So, as our youth do, they began to organize and formed a youth-led Outdoor Equity group to work with local orgs and park systems to get more brown and black bodies outside. Over the years, it has taken up advocacy in how environmental issues and racism intersect, how these issues affect brown and black bodies, and our youth have been contracted as equity consultants on a city wide urban forestry project PVD Trees.
Most recently, in 2023, YIA joined Amplifying Diverse Perspectives in Conservation (ADPC) in partnership with the Mystic Aquarium. We’re excited to co-create and facilitate space for youth of color to be a part of the ocean conservation movement.
